is no responsible constituency arguing
against ensuring that students learn how
to think in school. Rather, the issue is
how to meet the challenges of delivering
content and skills in a rich way that
genuinely improves outcomes for
students.

What will it take to ensure that the
idea of “21st century skills”—or more
precisely, the effort to ensure that all
students, rather than just a privileged
few, have access to a rich education that
intentionally helps them learn these
skills—is successful in improving
schools? That effort requires three
primary components. First, educators
and policymakers must ensure that the
instructional program is complete and
that content is not shortchanged for an
ephemeral pursuit of skills. Second,
states, school districts, and schools need
to revamp how they think about human
capital in education—in particular how
teachers are trained. Finally, we need
new assessments that can accurately
measure richer learning and more
complex tasks.

For the 21st century skills effort to be
effective, these three elements must be
implemented in concert. Otherwise, the
reform will be superficial and counterproductive.

Better Curriculum

People on all sides of this debate often
speak of skills and knowledge as separate. They describe skills as akin to a
function on a calculator: If your calculator can compute square roots, it can
do so for any number; similarly, if a
student has developed the ability to
“think scientifically,” he or she can do so
with any content. In this formulation,
domain knowledge is mainly important
as grist for the mill—you need something to think about.

Skills and knowledge are not sepa-rate, however, but intertwined. In somecases, knowledge helps us recognize the

underlying structure of a problem. For
example, even young children understand the logical implications of a rule
like “If you finish your vegetables, you
will get a cookie after dinner.” They can
draw the logical conclusion that a child
who is denied a cookie after dinner
must not have finished her vegetables.

Without this familiar context, however,
the same child will probably find it difficult to understand the logical form
modus tollens, of which the cookie rule is
an example. (If P, then Q. Q is false.
Therefore, P is false.) Thus, it’s inaccurate
to conceive of logical thinking as a separate skill that can be applied across a
variety of situations. Sometimes we fail
to recognize that we have a particular
thinking skill (such as applying modus

tollens) unless it comes in the form of
known content.

At other times, we know that we have
a particular thinking skill, but domain
knowledge is necessary if we are to use
it. For example, a student might have
learned that “thinking scientifically”
requires understanding the importance
of anomalous results in an experiment.
If you’re surprised by the results of an
experiment, that suggests that your
hypothesis was wrong and the data are
telling you something interesting. But to
be surprised, you must make a prediction in the first place—and you can only
generate a prediction if you understand
the domain in which you are working.
Thus, without content knowledge we
often cannot use thinking skills properly
and effectively.

Why would misunderstanding the
relationship of skills and knowledge
lead to trouble? If you believe that skills
and knowledge are separate, you are
likely to draw two incorrect conclusions. First, because content is readily
available in many locations but thinking
skills reside in the learner’s brain, it
would seem clear that if we must choose
between them, skills are essential,
whereas content is merely desirable.
Second, if skills are independent of
content, we could reasonably conclude
that we can develop these skills through
the use of any content. For example, if
students can learn how to think critically about science in the context of any
scientific material, a teacher should
select content that will engage students
(for instance, the chemistry of candy),
even if that content is not central to the
field. But all content is not equally
important to mathematics, or to science,
or to literature. To think critically,
students need the knowledge that is
central to the domain.

The importance of content in the
development of thinking creates several
challenges for the 21st century skills